Rostov R6: T. Hou Yifan resumes winning streak

8/9/2011 – She's back to her old ways, after a single draw in round five. Women's world champion Hou Yifan from China wrung a full point from GM Elina Danielian from Armenia. Russian GM Tatiana Kosentseva won a second game in this event and moved up to Kateryna Lahno in shared second place, 1.5 point behind the leader. Hou's performance so far: 2953. Round six report.

Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more!

Along with the ChessBase 14 program you can access the Live Database of 8 million games, and receive three months of free ChesssBase Account Premium membership and all of our online apps! Have a look today!

The Rostov Chess Federation in collaboration with FIDE and Global Chess is
organising the first event for the 2011/2012 Women's Grand Prix series. The
tournament is being held in the Don-Plaza Hotel and runs from August 1st (arrival,
opening) until August 15 (departure). The eleven rounds are between August 2nd
and 14, with rest days on the 6th and 11th. The start of the games from of rounds
1-10 is 3:00 p.m. local time, round 11 at starts at noon local time. The winner
receives 6,500 Euros out of a total prize fund of 40,000 Euros, and the overall
winner of the Women's Grand Prix will win a further 15,000 Euros at the end
of the series.

Round six report

Round six: Monday August 08 at 15:00

Ruan Lufei

0-1

Kosintseva Tatiana

Lahno Kateryna

½-½

Kovalevskaya Ekat.

Hou Yifan

1-0

Danielian Elina

Stefanova Antoaneta

½-½

Kosintseva Nadezhda

Koneru Humpy

½-½

Muzychuk Anna

Galliamova Alisa

½-½

Kosteniuk Alexandra

Lufei Ruan-Tatiana Kosintseva 0:1
The game was a Scheveningen in which White played the thematic e5 push on move
19 but found herself clearly worse after the exchanges that followed. Black
was able to focus on a debilitating weakness in her opponent's camp, the weak
pawn on d3, which she was able to capture on move 31, gaining an essentially
winning position. The endgame took Tatiana all the way to move 63, but she had
a forced mate when her opponent at last resigned.

Lufei Ruan and Tatiana Kosintseva in their press conference after the game

Kateryna Lahno-Ekaterina Kovalevskaya ½:½A Tarrasch in the QGD in which Black played an interesting line with
6...cxd4 7.Nxd4 Qb6. A clearly well prepared Ekaterina Kovalevskaya had everything
under control and after some heavy exchanges was able to force a draw by repetition.
It was her third half-point in this tournament.

Kateryna and Ekaterina – in the press conference after their game

Chinese GM Hou Yifan, now with 5.5/6 and a 2953 performance

Opponent Elina Danielian in the press conference after the game

Hou Yifan-Elina Danielian 1-0The reigning women's world champion chose the 6.c3 line in the Caro-Kann
Advance Variation and forced her opponent to play with double pawns in the f-file.
Black's attempt to brake up the white position with 19...c5 was ill-fated and
gave Yifan a full pawn and a winning edge. The game is well worth replaying,
especially with a chess engine explaining the tactical nuances.

Antoaneta Stefanova-Nadezhda Kosintseva ½-½
A Queen's Gambit Ragozin saw Black temporarily sacrifice a pawn for an advantage
in the development, but then lose heart and simplify the position by exchanging
queens and returning the pawn. The resulting rooks + knight endgame did not
give either of the players real winning chances, and a draw by repetition was
the result after 44 moves.

Flowers in the hair – something you rarely see in men's events

Humpy Koneru-Anna Muzychuk ½-½
The Ukraining GM Anna Muzychuk, who now plays for Slovenia, chose the Leningrad
Variation of the Dutch Defence. Humpy Koneru played a double bishop fianchetto
and disrupted the centre with 13.e4. Black went for the thematic counterattack
a7-a5-a4, transferring her knight from a6 to b3 and playing 19...e5. By move
36 Humpy had a clearly better position with a rook for bishop and pawn, but
she was not able to make headway and the game ended with the obligatory repetition
after 48 moves.

The second strongest female player in history: Humpy Koneru

Alisa Galliamova-Alexandra Kosteniuk ½-½
The game was a classical Nimzo-Indian with 4.Qc2 d5 5.cxd5 exd5, which the former
women's world champion messed up in the opening. "I could have resigned
by move ten," said Alexandra Kosteniuk. We think that is exaggerated, but
certainly by move 16 Alisa Galliamova had a winning advantage. However an error
on move 22 turned everything around. GM Vitaly Kiselev, whose daily game summaries
are very useful, has promised detailed analysis of this game on the official
site on Tuesday.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!